recipe exchange

I was invited to join a recipe exchange.
Really this is just a friendly, non-threatening chain letter.
But a chain letter nonetheless.
Most of the time when I receive something like this in my inbox I say a quick blessing and hit delete.
For some reason, partly because I really like the person who sent it to me and partly because it was raining and I was daydreamy, I sent a recipe.

Here is the recipe I sent:

recipe for...
the perfect bath

tuck kids into bed (if you have them)
turn off phones, tv, radio, stereo etc
boil a big pot of water & add one or more of the following but not all:

(with suggested quantities for each item)

sliced apple (one apple)
sliced quince (one quince)
sliced oranges (one orange)
ginger, fresh- good for warming-(1-2 inch piece cut up)
~~
rose petals (up to 2 lg handfuls fresh and 1 lg handful dried)
lavender flowers (handful or less)
chamomile (1/2 cup)
peppermint leaves (1/2 cup)
thyme leaves (1/8-1/4 cup)-good for stuffy nose

*the top set of suggestions should be simmered for 15-30 minutes
*the second set should be added to boiling water, heat turned off, lid on and steep for 15-20 minutes

while the herbs/fruit are steeping/simmering
gather:

robe
towels
washcloth (to dry off your hands if you have a book)
book
tea (can be the same as you are making above)
or water
candle/matches
sea salt

making sure there are no stray bits of other peoples hair (eww) fill the tub with the perfect temperature of water.
add a handful of sea salt to the running water, this will help to release any negative or stale thoughts and energy.
light your candle/s
arrange book, washcloth & tea/water on a stool or small table so you can easily reach them.

now, carefully! pour the tub tea into your bath, it's actually better to have someone do this for you. You can strain it if you like but I prefer not to.
adjust the lights to your reading or not reading needs
get undressed and step into the bathtub.

relax and know that you are taking time for something very important, time for yourself is good for everyone around you.

drink in the goodness of the experience and know that even if you are reading a trashy paperback that magic is happening and you will be transformed in small & maybe barely perceptible ways, and who knows maybe this is the thing that shifts the multiverse and we just needed a recipe exchange to make it happen.

xoxo

Tea

I love tea.
Tea pots, tea cozies, tea leaves, herbal tea, black tea, green tea, jasmine tea, honey, cream & sugar, I could go on & on but you get the idea. I'll even drink basic black bagged tea when it's offered, just keep me away from anything with the word spice in it; orange spice, market spice and the even worse holiday themed spice teas. These are generally mediocre to bad tea with the addition of essential oils! Perfume in my tea, no thank you. And cinnamon perfume at that. No, really.
Real tea and spices have flavor and scent isn't that enough?
This is the tea you get stuck with if you ask for herbal in most suburban households.
My partner worked at a coffee roastery many moons ago and after a day when they made flavored coffee (another terrible sin) he would come home smelling of generic "spice". He informs me it was cinnamic aldehyde.
Sorry for the rant, I didn't know I had so many issues with the "spice tea".

The point is I do love tea and I had intended to make and sell tea in my shop, but as it is super busy having a shop without making a million new products I have let myself off the hook (is this a reference to Ereshkigal & Inanna?) and ordered tea that someone else will package and label and name.
Loose leaf teas from The Tao of Tea and bagged tea from Treleela. I am so excited.
Tea, to make, share and drink!
And teapots!
Still so excited.
Julia, who is my right hand woman here in the shop loves tea just as much as I do. It was one of the first things we bonded over, so many years ago.
I also just ordered some porcelein teapots that look as if they are carved out of pure white branches, can't wait.
So, now we have the tea and are happily drinking it and it's given me a place to practice mono-tasking. Mono-tasking is the very difficult concept of doing one thing at a time. This may be easy for some, but not for me, and not for Julia. The other day we tried it, I was serious about it. We're going to have tea. Can we go over what needs labeling? No, we're just having tea. OK. How about we just look over that new catalog? No, just tea. Drinking tea. Nothing else. It was difficult to imagine having enough time in the day to do only one very simple, slow thing. And a pleasurable thing at that, like taking a bath in the middle of the day.
Really it was only ten or fifteen minutes but we did it. I challenge you to try it. Mono, really just the one thing, and tea is a great place to start.